This thesis concerns itself with citizen participation and sustainable tourism, applied on the case study development in the tourism destination Aurland. The development of the sustainable tourist destination Aurland, is one of many predevelopment project in Norway aiming at development, Competence partner Development partner and Marked partners . The strategy aims at using these concepts to make the projekt visible to the outside world, develop the region with the local and develop a strong bond between market actors in the tourism industry. However since 2015 their has been demostrations and a call for strickter condition on the tourism industry in Aurland. The citizens want more saying in the development, as they feel as the tourist industry has already become to much too beer for the small community. Ever since the 2008 reform of the building and planning law the Norwegian government and the planners have tried to activate the citizens and get them involved in every major building project. Although the 2008 reform introduced more citizens participation it did however not specify to which degree the citizens should be consulted. The thesis is of a qualitative nature with a basis in a case study consisting of interviews with representatives consisting of the planners, official interests groups and a citizens group. The thesis explores citizens participation in relation to planning and toruism theory and has an empirical approach in a Norwegian context. In order to understand the degree of citizen participation and the potential influence the citizens can achieve, the model of Arnstein’s ladder of participation and «Sagers medvirkningsstigge» are used in order to explore and understand the role of the citizens in the development of Aurland as a tourist destination. Both ladder of citizen’s participation and «medvirkningsstigge» are theories investigating and to some extent understand the complexity of citizens/planner relation. By applying the models upon fieldwork research of the Aurland project, there were indicators, that the citizens had a relative high degree of participation in the project.